New Jersey, UK Discuss Shared Poker Liquidity

New Jersey’s growing online poker market could be in a for a major shot in the arm if a proposal to share liquidity with the UK market comes to pass. It’s an audacious plan that faces some significant regulatory hurdles before becoming a reality.

On its face, the plan is pretty simple. Players from New Jersey would be able to participate in games that include UK players and UK players would be able to play with Jersey boys.

In this scenario, players benefit from being able to pick from a larger selection of tables, and operators benefit from larger rakes.

That’s the easy part.

As multiple online poker news sites, including OnlinePokerReport.com, have pointed out, shared liquidity has plenty of challenges to overcome before it makes its way across the Atlantic.

For starters, New Jersey law is very on the subject of server location. All Jersey players must play on servers that are located in the state. While that rule could be flexed a bit, it would require significant changes to current NJ gaming law.

There’s also some question as to whether the New Jersey gambling industry would even be all that interested in sharing anything with anybody. After all, the whole point of introducing regulated online poker and casino games was to help boost the fortunes of struggling Atlantic City casinos. It’s hard to see how throwing UK poker players into the mix will help accomplish that goal (unless UK players actually register and deposit with Jersey-based sites).

That said, New Jersey gaming are open to the idea. The Department of Gaming Enforcement recently sent out letters to their operators asking how they might make such a plan work and will be reviewing their answers this fall.